


Assigning Blame

by jackabelle73



Series: Captured Moments [4]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 18:42:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14526789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jackabelle73/pseuds/jackabelle73
Summary: Rumple knows there is something Belle's not telling him, but he can't figure out the mystery. Based on the prompt: "Whatever it is, I didn't do it."





	Assigning Blame

There had been something off about Belle for the past few days, but Rumplestiltskin couldn’t quite put his finger on it. She seemed happy enough, most of the time—as devoted a mother to Gideon as she had been these past two years, and certainly she was no less affectionate to her husband. He smiled to himself as he worked at the table in the back room of the pawn shop, remembering the way she’d pulled him toward bed last night as soon as their son was asleep.

Yes, she seemed happy overall. But he’d caught her recently, giving him intent looks when he thought he didn’t see. Maybe he was reading too much into it, but it felt like there was something of an accusation in her stare. Regardless, her mind was clearly elsewhere and thinking hard about something that she wasn’t sharing with him.

At one time, secrets had been standard in their marriage, and he knew he’d been guilty of most of them. But no more. Since they’d gotten their son back from the Black Fairy and been given a second chance to raise him from infancy, they’d worked hard to keep the lines of communication open. And he’d renounced the Darkness, keeping it at bay in favor of fatherhood. Honestly, he’d been better behaved in the past two years, than he’d been for centuries. So why did he get the feeling he’d done something wrong?

Looking at the time, he realized he needed to meet his family for lunch, and then it would be his turn to take Gideon for the afternoon. Perhaps while they ate, he could ask Belle if anything had been bothering her. He’d put off doing so, intending to let her tell him in her own time, but he was starting to worry.

When he walked in the library however, he was greeted by their son on a pile of books in the middle of the floor. Belle was nowhere in sight and the empty shelves just behind Gideon said clearly where the books had come from. The culprit sat happily on top of the mound, chewing the corner of a hardbound book that looked rather expensive.

“Your mother would not approve, m’boy,” Rumple admonished him, taking the book, repairing it quickly and setting it on a high shelf.

“Papa!” The book forgotten, Gideon reached his arms up, chubby fingers opening and closing in a wordless plea. The radiant smile he aimed at his father almost made it possible to ignore the drool covering his chin.

Rumple picked him up, fumbling for a handkerchief to mop up the worst of the moisture and looking around. It wasn’t like Belle to leave Gideon unattended….and from the size of that book mound, he’d been unsupervised for several minutes.

“Belle? Are you here, sweetheart?”

“Yes, just a moment!” Her voice came from further back in the library, where her small office and a bathroom sat on either side of the staircase leading up to the apartment she’d lived in briefly.

“What’s your mummy up to, hmm?” he asked Gideon softly, prying his tie from the toddler’s damp hands.

A toilet flushed and a moment later Belle appeared, still drying her hands on a towel then using it to wipe her mouth. She looked flushed and out of sorts, in a way he didn’t see her often. Her expression didn’t get any happier when she saw the mess on the floor.

“Gideon! What did you do?” She knelt and began picking the books up, piling them into her arms.

“Would you like me to re-shelve them for you?” Rumple asked, hoping to prevent the tirade he could see building. “I would have done it already, but–”

“But your magic doesn’t seem to understand the filing system, and always puts them back in the wrong places,” she retorted. “No thank you, I’ll do it myself. I’ll spend the rest of the afternoon trying to straighten out this mess.”

Gideon pushed at his chest and leaned toward his mother, no doubt wanting to get down and ‘help’ clean up, but Rumple refused to let him down, instead bouncing him a bit to keep him distracted.

“How long did you leave him alone, Belle? You know how he gets into things.”

She looked up at him from where she still crouched, now stacking the books into smaller piles that he assumed made sense to her. Her eyes narrowed.

“Don’t you dare try to make this my fault, Rumplestiltskin!”

He bit back the retort that he wanted to thoughtlessly throw back at her. She was in a rare mood, had been for weeks now, and he didn’t want to antagonize her. But he also wasn’t going to accept blame for something that happened when he wasn’t even there!

“Look, Belle…” he smiled, trying to defuse the situation before she became any more agitated. “You seem like you’re upset about something. Something more than…this.” He gestured to the mess in front of them. “Whatever it is, I didn’t do it. But I’ll try to help you fix it, if you’ll tell me what’s bothering you.”

She stood slowly, almost able to look him in the eye in her elevating footwear. Something had shifted behind her eyes; her mood had gone from angry to thoughtful. And was that just a hint of mischief he saw?

“You didn’t do it?” she asked softly, a smile twitching at the corners of her mouth. Rumplestiltskin might be the Dark One, but he knew his magic meant little compared to the power his True Love held over him. And right now, she was balanced between fury and playfulness, and he honestly wasn’t sure which emotion would win. With that in mind, he tried to answer as carefully and honestly as he could.

“I still don’t know what  _it_  is, but I’m fairly sure it isn’t my fault.”

“Hmm. What if I told you, that I knew for a fact that it couldn’t be anyone else’s fault?” She reached out and tugged at his tie, her smile starting to widen. One eyebrow quirked at him, while Rumple felt more and more out of his depth.

Gideon was whining again, leaning toward the floor, so Rumple set him down to focus fully on Belle. He cupped her elbows, aligning their forearms, and she didn’t object. He felt steadier for the contact.

“Sweetheart…I feel like I’m in the dark here. If you know something I don’t, I wish you’d let me in on the secret.”

“Your Magic 8-Ball didn’t tell you?”  

“Tell me  _what_?”

She started laughing, stepping closer and looping her arms around his neck, and he breathed easy for the first time in several minutes.

“Rumple….” Her fingertips massaged his skull in the way he loved, and she aimed a dazzling smile at him before announcing, “I’m pregnant.”

“You’re…” His sentence trailed off. “Really?”

“Want to tell me again how it’s not your fault?” she teased.

“Is this what you’ve been keeping from me?” he asked, still trying to put the pieces together.

“Well, considering that last time I was deprived of my chance to give you the news, I was trying to find some really dramatic way of telling you. But…I’m starting to have some nausea, and you were going to figure it out very soon anyway, so…” She shrugged, acknowledging the futility of a dramatic announcement.

He stepped back, his gaze going to her abdomen before dropping to his knees to cup her stomach in both hands and kiss it reverently. “Our child is really in here?”  

“She is. I’m sure of it.” Fingers brushed hair from his eyes, with feather-light touches.

“She?”

Belle shrugged. “Just a feeling I have. I think we’re going to give this one a little sister.” She nodded to Gideon, who had filched two books from the pile and was toddling his way to Rumple, holding them up for inspection.

“Hear that, Gideon? You’re going to be a big brother!” Rumple lifted him in one arm, books and all, and tugged Belle down with them so he could kiss her in jubilation, breaking it off to whisper, “Another baby.”

“Yes….and it’s all  _your_  fault,” she reminded him.

“For this, I’ll gladly accept the blame.” 

He pulled his small family closer, kissing them both so many times that Gideon grew tired of the game and wiggled down, climbing back atop the book pile and leaving his parents to continue their celebration.

**Author's Note:**

> This was previously published on AO3 as part of a different series, but I'm reorganizing my fics and felt this one fit better as part of the "Captured Moments" series.


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